


Perfect World

by Samifer



Category: Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: Bad Ending, Corpses, F/F, Hallucinations, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samifer/pseuds/Samifer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m sorry, those of you who are not members of Team Flare, but this is adieu to you all. “  Lysandre won.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. smoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is very sad i'm warning you in case it's not obvious from the summary (also, spoilers)

Smoke.

Victory smelled like smoke, and something else, metallic and sweet – blood, he thought, but it wasn't something he wanted to think about right now. He heard Xerosic cough somewhere near him, but he was staring at the machine. It had collapsed on itself, something he wasn't expecting to happen. The ultimate weapon was probably dead by now. He didn't need it anymore.

So that was how it felt to succeed, he thought.

“It looks like part of the HQ collapsed, too,” Xerosic said. “Can't say I didn't expect that.”

“We need to... regroup,” Lysandre finally managed to say. “Gather everyone who's still alive.”

Xerosic made a noise that sounded like “this isn't my job” but didn't complain and promptly left to do as he was asked.

There it was, then.

His perfect world.

Rocks were falling close to him, making a ruckus, but he could barely hear it because of how loud his heart was beating. He should have been glad, he should have rejoiced, but the shock of having actually did it – of having won – was too big for him to truly realize it.

He took off his visor and put it in his coat pocket. How he was feeling was irrelevant. He had to act. Be the leader. Help his fellow chosen ones build a new, better world.

As he was walking out, he thought he saw someone standing next to him, but when he looked again, there was no one.

Maybe the smoke was affecting his mind, he thought, and left the room.

*** * ***

Climbing the stairs back to the main computer room, he thought about what he was supposed to do now. The pokémon were gone... everyone was gone, except them. He had to admit he hadn't really planned this part out very well.

Some part of him never really thought he was going to win.

He reached the top floor without having figured out what he was going to tell them. A fair number of recruits and most admins were fine. All his scientists were there, except Celosia.

Bryony was crying.

He had never seen her cry before. He had never really been in their presence much.

“Celosia is missing,” Xerosic said like he would have announced that one of their computers had malfunctioned. “Bryony thinks she was crushed when the ceiling collapsed in the room they were in together.”

“That is unfortunate,” Lysandre said, unable to stop staring at Bryony and her face covered in tears and snot.

“I c-can't... I can't... I can't believe she's dead!” Bryony cried out in his direction.

“A lot of people are dead,” Lysandre said.

*** * ***

They dug up Celosia's body because Bryony wanted to see it. Lysandre refused at first, but she kept insisting, and everyone was uncomfortable with the strange way she had been acting ever since the incident.

She regretted it now that she could see it, it was obvious from the look on her face. He couldn't blame her; Celosia's face and half of her body had been crushed, making her more of a mess than a human being.

Still. Bryony stopped crying after that.

*** * ***

Lumiose City was in ruins.

The Prism Tower had collapsed, crushing entire streets. It was a sad sight, but not as bad as the corpses. They were everywhere.

In the streets, in the houses, some crushed under destroyed building, some just lying on the floor, seemingly unharmed, but cold and unresponsive. Dead. Humans, pokémon. Dead.

Lysandre barely flinched when one of the younger recruits fainted on the spot, overwhelmed by the presence of all the bodies. They hadn't looked outside while they were in the cars, driving to the capital. He had.

They had work to do.

“We need to pile them up,” he said, staring right in front of him.

“What... for?” he heard Mable say behind his back.

Xerosic sighed.

“We're going to burn them,” Lysandre replied in an even voice.

The others said nothing for what seemed like a long time. Lysandre bent over and picked up a pokéball that someone had dropped, probably when they died. It was light and empty.

“I didn't join this to burn corpses,” a grunt said in a high pitched voice. “That's disgusting.”

“You would rather live in a town covered in rotten cadavers, then,” Lysandre said softly, crushing a pair of glasses with his boot.

“W-Well, no, but...”

“There's no but,” Xerosic said. “Do what your boss said.”

*** * ***

No one tried to follow him when they saw where he was going. Well, Bryony tried, but Xerosic stopped her. She couldn't see his eyes behind his goggles, but the way he was holding her arm was enough to make her understand she was to leave Lysandre alone.

Augustine Sycamore's laboratory was a mess from the outside. All the windows were broken, and the door fell over when he tried to open it. The woman at the counter was dead, but he was expecting that. What he wasn't sure about was whether or not the elevator would still be working.

It was still functional, though, and it even responded immediately when he pushed the button to the third floor. He didn't know whether that was a good thing or not.

Sycamore's assistant was lying on the floor right in front of the elevator. Had she been about to use it before the weapon hit? He would never know the answer to that question. He carefully stepped over her corpse.

He couldn't see where Sycamore was over the panel in the middle of the room. Sometimes he wondered what was the point of that, but the professor seemed attached to it.

He walked to the other side.

Sycamore had been sitting at his desk when it happened. He was hunched over, his face merely centimeters away from the wooden surface. He was dead, of course.

Lysandre knew that he was going to be dead. But knowing he was dead and seeing his corpse was very different, and now he could understand why Bryony had wanted to see Celosia so bad.

He touched his cold hard face, and his hair, and it was the closest he had ever been to Augustine Sycamore, and he was dead.

Maybe it wasn't the most appropriate time to think about this.

He put his hands under Sycamore's cold, dead arms and moved him away from the chair he was sitting on, then he lifted him and took him in his arms like he was a sleeping child – although a sleeping child was probably lighter than the corpse of a grown man.

He took the elevator with him – it – him, looking at his peaceful expression. Hopefully he hadn't even realized he was dying, Lysandre thought.

When he got out of the lab, carrying Sycamore's body pressed against his chest, he saw that the other Team Flare members had already started piling bodies in one spot, and he felt thankful that they were cooperating.

He was starting to think that maybe this wasn't going to be as perfect as he had originally planned.

Xerosic spotted him and ran in his direction. He said nothing regarding who Lysandre was holding, but it was obvious by the way his mouth twitched that he was not pleased.

“I have to drive to Couriway Town,” Lysandre said before his scientist could open his mouth. Other Team Flare members were approaching, curious about what was going on.

“You're not putting a corpse in the car,” Xerosic said, grinding his teeth.

“Yes, I am,” Lysandre retorted. His voice was calm but inside he was boiling. “I paid for these cars. I'll put ten corpses in them if I want to.”

He didn't let Xerosic find something to reply and walked past him to get to where the cars were parked. He felt someone putting their hand on his back and turned around slightly.

It was Bryony. She had taken off her visor, and she was crying.

“I'm sorry,” she said, and suddenly Lysandre felt like he was going to cry too, so he nodded without saying a word and kept walking, fully aware of the weight of Sycamore's body in his arms.

*** * ***

There was a corpse on the road on the way to Couriway Town. He knew because he hit it – her – him – he didn't know, didn't look – with the car.

He tried not to think about it as he took Sycamore – Sycamore's body – out and carried him to a spot where he could bury him. It had to be a nice spot, but Couriway Town was a nice spot in itself, even with all the corpses, if only because he knew Sycamore was born here, and that he would be happy to rest here, maybe – he tried to believe that as hard as he could.

He broke into a house full of dead people, then another, then another again, until he found a shovel he could use to dig a hole. It was strange to do things without his pokémon there to help him.

His pokémon were dead too.

He had killed everyone in the end, and that was what he wanted, but now he wasn't sure he wanted it anymore. It was too late, though.

He dug and dug and dug and when he was almost done he realized that there was no way he could bury Sycamore like this, without putting him in something, covering his body so that he wouldn't be lying in the dirt. He went back in the houses, ripped curtains from a window, draped Sycamore in them, but not before looking at his face one last time, touching his forehead, crying maybe.

He spent a long time burying Sycamore.

It was odd, he thought afterward, when the hole was filled and the deed was done, how he suddenly realized how much he cared about Sycamore, now that he was dead and in the ground.

Maybe he just didn't want to think about it before that, because it was distracting – no one was as distracting as Augustine Sycamore – because it was hopeless, too. Sycamore _liked_ him, there was no doubt about it; but it wasn't...

Well... he didn't think it was, at least. And now it was too late to find out.

He saw someone again as he got back up, out of the corner of his eye. Thinking it was just because he was tired and his vision was blurry, he paid no mind, until he heard a voice behind him.

“Well, good job!”

There was no mistaking it, but it was impossible – and yet Lysandre turned around and there was pokémon professor Augustine Sycamore, standing on his own grave.

Lysandre blinked.

“You're dead,” he said, which was stupid, because this was obviously not happening, and he was obviously imagining things out of grief.

“A lot of people are dead,” Sycamore said.

*** * ***

This was Hell, Hell, he deserved this, but this was Hell, and Sycamore knew it – well, no, Sycamore didn't know anything, because he wasn't real. The Sycamore he had buried was real. The Sycamore that was standing in his café wasn't.

Xerosic and the others were staring at him but he couldn't focus on anything with Sycamore standing right behind them, his arms crossed, his back against the wall.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, putting his hand on his face. “What were you saying? I haven't slept.”

“I said,” Xerosic very carefully articulated, and he himself sounded very tired, “that I'm confident we've cleaned up Lumiose. We just need to burn the bodies now.”

Lysandre nodded, trying to ignore the big smile that suddenly spread on Sycamore's face.

“Niiiiice work,” he purred in a tone that he had never used with him when he was alive, something between sarcasm and admiration. “Have you dealt with corpses before? You're handling this like a pro, Lys.”

He blinked and Sycamore was gone from where he was, and instead he could feel – he could feel it, but it wasn't real – hands on his shoulders, arms around his neck. He shivered.

“Are you alright?” It was strange to hear concern in Xerosic's voice. “You look sick.”

“This has been hard for all of us,” a Flare admin sitting next to Xerosic said. Lysandre wasn't sure he deserved the comforting tone of his voice, either. He didn't even know his name. He barely knew any of them, he realized as he felt Sycamore's fingers brush the back of his hand. He straightened his back and slammed his hands on the table as if he had been burnt. Xerosic flinched.

“I'm fine,” he said, but it wasn't very convincing.

Sycamore laughed in his hair.

“I'll be in my office if you need me,” he added as he stood up to leave.

“We haven't even decided what we were going to do next!” Aliana protested. He hadn't heard her talk much since they had fired up the weapon. She was still wearing her visor, so he couldn't see her eyes.

“I'll be in my office,” he repeated, louder. “You need to rest, and I do too, so do me a favor and allow yourself to calm down a little.”

He could hear Sycamore's footsteps behind him as he walked up to the elevator.

*** * ***

He'd fallen asleep.

Being alone in a room with the manifestation of his dead friend hadn't been a very good idea, in the end. He could still feel Sycamore's body close against his, whispering next to his ear something about guilt and death.

It was his Holo Caster that had woken him up. He checked it with shaky hands, looking around the room to see if he could spot dead people nearby, but saw no one.

A message sent by Malva started playing. She was fine, and glad to be alive, but the look in her eyes seemed to contradict her words. She had been with her colleagues of the Elite 4 when the weapon had hit, and had lost consciousness briefly. Diantha was dead, crushed under parts of the ceiling. Like Celosia, Lysandre thought.

Siebold's Elite room had malfunctioned due to the shock and Malva was lucky to have woken up in time before it got too bad. She would have drowned, and her joining Team Flare and surviving the blast thanks to the technology she had been gifted would have been all for nothing.

“It's for nothing no matter what,” Sycamore said behind his back, too close, suddenly, right there. Lysandre turned off his Holo Caster.

“I'm not in the mood to talk to the dead.”

“Oooh, so now you're too good for me, is that it?” He was only pretending to be hurt – and he wasn't even real – but Lysandre still couldn't look at him. “Little rich genius boy, you're alive and I'm not, so we can't stay together anymore? Do you want me to leave? Is that it?”

“No,” Lysandre admitted.

A made-up Sycamore was better than a dead one.

*** * ***

Rebuilding the world was a lot of work without the help of pokémon. At least Xerosic and Malva could take care of things for him – with him. They had left Lumiose now, because there was really no point in staying while the smell of burnt bodies was omnipresent in the air.

Except Bryony. Bryony had stayed, because someone had to make sure the fire wouldn't spread, and she was fine with the smell. Lysandre could only wish to be as brave as she was.

They could still smell it from Camphrier Town, and there were more bodies there, more and more dead people, dead pokémon, everywhere. Lysandre was starting to get a headache.

“This is never going to end,” Malva sighed. “Maybe we should just bury them _en masse_. Otherwise the entire region is going to smell like burnt meat.”

“I suppose we don't really have a choice,” Lysandre said. Sycamore's cold hands were on the back of his neck.

“Maybe you should have kept some of your pokémon to help you,” he murmured.

Lysandre missed his pyroar, but he didn't want to think about that. There were a lot of things he missed.

*** * ***

They drove to Santalune Forest in silence to dig a hole there.

*** * ***

He couldn't stay, couldn't stand the sight of this giant hole, and no one tried to stop him. His Holo Caster rang and it was Bryony.

“The fire's dying down,” she said, her face unreadable. She had stopped wearing her visor for a while now. “All that's left are ashes, it seems. Could you... come? I'd appreciate it.”

He got in the car. Sycamore was sitting in the passenger seat.

“She's cute!” he said enthusiastically as Lysandre started up the engine, sounding exactly like the real Sycamore for once. “I'm sad that you never introduced me to all your cute Flare girls. Too bad her girlfriend's dead, right?”

Too bad everyone's dead, Lysandre thought. Too bad. Too bad.

Bryony was waiting for him near the entrance to the city. The smell was still as strong as ever, even now that he could see that the fire was almost dead. She was crying, but her face wasn't moving, which was a puzzling sight.

She ran to him and he held her because he didn't know what else to do. She was crying on his shoulder and it was probably staining his coat. He had no idea what he was supposed to do in this situation, so he sort of awkwardly patted her on the back. He could see Sycamore looking at him, giving him a thumbs up.

“Score,” he could read on his lips, because he wasn't making a sound for once.

“I'm sorry,” Bryony mumbled against the fabric of his coat. “I shouldn't be crying, but... it's so... I didn't think... I didn't think it would be this way...”

“Me neither,” Lysandre said.

She was clinging to him and she wouldn't let go. He had never hugged anyone before, except maybe his mother back when he was a child.

It was strange. A bit warm. A bit too intimate, maybe.

“We should go inside the labs,” he said in an attempt to get her to let him go. “I can't stand this smell.”

“Yeah... it's gross... I thought I'd get used to it but... I kept thinking about Celosia... do you think she's in Heaven, now?”

Heaven.

He didn't answer. Instead he took her hand – something else he hadn't done since he was a child – to lead her to the café. Her hand was warm and smaller than his. Not fragile – she was not fragile – but soft.

He shivered slightly when he felt Sycamore take his other hand, but Bryony didn't notice. Now he was holding the hands of a ghost and a widow.

It felt nice, all things considered.

*** * ***

They were sitting in the café now. Lysandre had made some coffee for them both, but Bryony wasn't drinking it. He had been so close to making a third cup for Sycamore, but had stopped himself in time.

“So...” Bryony said, her voice unsure.

“Yes?”

“Were you and professor Sycamore... um... I mean... we all saw you... carry him.” She was looking at her hands neatly joined together in front of her cup, still full of hot coffee.

Sycamore waved from behind her, which made no sense because she was sitting against the wall and he was _in_ the wall, and it just served to remind him that he was dead and this was all in his head.

Not that it being in his head made it matter less.

“I wouldn't say that,” he replied.

“Oh, I'm sorry... I just thought...”

“We never really... hooked up, if that's what you meant.”

“But you did... um...” She was blushing slightly, and he couldn't help wonder why she wanted to know about this. Maybe she wanted to know if he felt like she did now that both Sycamore and Celosia were dead.

“I guess,” he said, staring at the wall behind her, or rather, at Sycamore in the wall, who was staring back.

“I'm dead,” Sycamore said. “You killed me.”

He already knew that, but a refresher was always welcome. He didn't register he was crying until he felt something wet fall on his hand, and Bryony was staring at him with her eyes wide open.

“Hey, it's alright.” She put her hand on his. It was strange to share a moment, strange, to be with her, when he barely knew her, and she barely knew him, and he barely knew anyone on this planet, to be honest, because he never let anyone get to know him, because then this happened.

He killed everyone, even the one person he had started caring about, who was standing next to him now, in all his imaginary glory, putting an imaginary hand on his shoulder.

“I love you,” Sycamore said somewhere around his neck, but it wasn't really him, it was just some messed up version his mind had created to torture him. Still, _the words_.

“It's not alright,” he said to cover the sound of Sycamore repeating the words over and over, and Bryony squeezed his hand a little.

“I know... I just don't know what else to say, or do.”

Me neither, he wanted to say, but that would have been irresponsible of him, and he was her leader, he was supposed to be in charge.

“We'll manage,” he said instead.

*** * ***

They dug a lot of holes.

A lot of people were dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> couriway town being sycamore's hometown is a headcanon, because that's where his message to his future self is.  
> i tried to make it so that lysandre's ultimate weapon plan wasn't absolutely awful, by making it so that flare members carried some sort of device that prevented the machine from targetting them (but doesn't prevent them from dying of other causes). i also went with both physical damage and "everyone dies" mixed together because... it would have not made a lot of sense for lysandre to just destroy the entire world with him in it. heh  
> i know the ending is very abrupt... i'll probably write a second part (or severals, who knows)  
> thank you for reading!


	2. fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone is dead, or sad, or both, part 2
> 
> there's a mention of necrophilia in this chapter, but no actual necrophilia happens. just a fair warning
> 
> (also, in this fic, lysandre used both xerneas and yveltal in his weapon)

Lysandre used to love fire.

It was warm; a powerful symbol of strength and passion, the flames in a fireplace at home or the flames that destroyed an entire forest in minutes; but now, whenever he thought of fire, he could only think of two things: the smell of burning bodies, and the dreams.

There was not much to say about the dreams. The least he thought about them, the better. Most of them involved Sycamore burning. Some involved other people burning, but there was always fire somewhere, and he was having them every time he went to sleep, and every time he woke up he would see Sycamore looking at him.

In the rare occasions where he'd sleep in a bed, he would wake up to Sycamore lying next to him, staring, a small smile on his face.

“Nice dreams, darling?” he'd say. “I would have made you coffee but it's hard for me to use utensils made for people who are real.”

Post-mortem teasing was an original way to torture oneself, at least.

He always let Sycamore touch his face, take his hand, trying his best to ignore the terrible things he was saying – that he was dead, that it was his fault, that he hated him – and he always felt pathetic afterward, because that's what he was: pathetic. Comforted by a ghost he made up in his mind.

A ghost who hated him just like he hated himself.

*** * ***

They had gotten two more key stones from the corpses in the Tower of Mastery, which Lysandre knew were the gym leader Korrina and her grandfather. There was no way they could get the one Diantha wore, because the Elite 4 was no longer accessible, flooded and broken beyond repair. Sometimes he thought about her corpse floating around, bloated and disgusting. Drasna and Siebold, too. Wikstrom probably sunk to the bottom with the heavy armor he wore.

It was probably unhealthy to think about dead people so much, but there was no way around it, not when one of them followed him around.

“Why do you need all these stones, anyway?” Sycamore said, his hands on Lysandre's waist. He could feel him talk, too close to his face.

He wanted to say, “they remind me of you,” but it was a bit cheesy, and Sycamore was in his mind anyway, so he didn't need an answer. The truth, of course, was that he didn't need those stones, because there weren't any more pokémon to mega evolve.

“Why would you need stones to remember me by? I'm right there.”

That was part of the problem, actually.

He was in his office, looking at his ring next to the other two stones, standing because sitting meant maybe falling asleep. Sycamore pressed his body close against his, as if he wanted them to fuse together.

“You buried me, right? Did that feel nice?” Lysandre had taken off his coat and he was regretting it, because he could feel Sycamore's hands trailing on his chest, and he could feel him breathing next to his ear, which made no sense, and he felt sick. “You planted me in the ground. Do you think a tree will grow there?”

He laughed and he was too close.

“Please stop,” Lysandre said, because he couldn't move, and he didn't know whether he was going to vomit or pass out, or both.

“Don't worry,” Sycamore whispered, but he could feel him letting go, “it's not necrophilia if you're not actually doing it with a corpse.”

Well, that was a relief.

*** * ***

One of the strangest thing in this situation wasn't even the fact that he was hallucinating his dead friend, but that he was constantly surrounded by other living, breathing human beings who needed his presence. Because they weren't many people left, the survivors could only count on themselves for human contact. The only escape Lysandre could find was locking himself in his office, where no one tried to disturb him, but where he was on his own against Sycamore.

When, as he was sharing coffee with Malva, she suddenly broke into tears, talking about how she kept seeing Diantha's crushed corpses in her dreams, he couldn't figure out what to do. A month prior, she would have never let herself go in front of him.

Xerosic himself sometimes seemed struck by a sudden wave of pain, his voice cracking slightly as he told Lysandre he was going to run some tests on them all to make sure there were no side effects left by the machine.

They were holding up, though. Bryony especially seemed to use Celosia's death as fuel for her somewhat out of place optimism, holding Aliana close, putting her hand on Mable's shoulder, nursing a younger recruit who had a hard time coping with everything.

Malva put her hands on her face in a poor attempts to conceal her sobs.

It was probably time to say something, Lysandre thought.

“Are... you going to be alright?” He didn't like how tense he sounded.

“I think so,” she said, but it didn't sound like she really believed it. “I don't know how you can act so... casual, about all this.”

Behind him, Sycamore started laughing so loud Lysandre couldn't help but be startled. Malva sighed, unaware, her eyes closed behind her hands.

“I mean, you don't seem very affected, outside of, being tired, I suppose...” She seemed embarrassed to have admitted that she thought he was holding up better than all of them. He had never seen her embarrassed before; she seemed like the kind of woman who didn't know what embarrassment was.

“Well, I'm your leader, I'm supposed to be unaffected,” Lysandre said. It was meant to be a joke, kind of, but he sounded a bit too bitter for it to really work.

“You're doing a great job,” Malva replied, and she was smiling – a little, not much, her eyes were still wet behind her glasses.

He was far from doing a great job, of course, but there was no point in refusing her compliment, so he smiled back at her, doing his best to ignore the hand Sycamore was running through his hair.

“You smell so good,” Sycamore said, but Lysandre wasn't listening, he wasn't even paying attention to him, “ like smoke. You smell like smoke.”

He probably did. There was smoke everywhere now that everyone was dead, it seemed.

*** * ***

They were all sitting in one of the computer rooms in the labs, a big one, because they couldn't all fit in the café. Xerosic had taken out a white board, but he wasn't actually writing anything on it, or using it for anything, really, except maybe to make himself look more scientific and serious, but he was trembling slightly.

Bryony was sitting next to Lysandre, and she reached out to take his hand, and he let her, though he wasn't sure why.

“I've run some tests on Aliana,” Xerosic began, touching his goggles with his right hand.

Lysandre leaned over slightly. Bryony was tracing circles on his palm with her thumb, an intimate gesture that actually made him feel more relaxed.

“I have reasons to believe the ultimate weapon affected us in ways we weren't expecting.” Xerosic seemed unable to stop touching his goggles, betraying his nervousness. “I think those of us who were close to the machine when it went off became... immortal.”

A Flare admin somewhere behind Lysandre snorted. “The machine that killed everyone made some of us immortal? Didn't think I could still be surprised after all this shit.”

“Language,” Lysandre groaned. Bryony was holding his hand too tightly now, but he didn't want to say anything.

“I'm going to have to test everyone,” Xerosic continued. “Some of us... are probably not affected, but I'd like to check just in case.”

Despite his attempts to hide it, it was obvious who Xerosic meant, and Malva let out a small cry. This seemed to be the signal everyone was waiting for, as suddenly the room was full of people talking, some yelling to try and be heard. Byony let go of Lysandre's hand and he stood up too fast, almost toppling his chair over.

“Calm down, all of you!” he roared, his voice filling the entire room. No one had ever seen him angry before; Lysandre was not one to lose his temper, or even show his emotions, whether negative or positive. This was changing more and more everyday, and he still couldn't tell if it was a good thing or not.

Everyone turned to look at him as silence fell over the room. Malva's gaze seemed to be going right through him.

“You will all go to Xerosic for testing tomorrow. Screaming isn't going to change anything.” It seemed like he should have said something else, words of encouragement maybe, but he didn't have the strength for it. He ran out of the room, because suddenly Sycamore was there, and he didn't want to deal with him in a room full of other people.

Bryony ran after him, but he only realized that once he reached the elevator.

She put her hand on his arm and he thought about boundaries, and how it had taken destroying the world for him to let someone get anywhere near him.

“Are you alright?” Bryony asked, and Lysandre wondered why people always asked other people how they were feeling even when the answer was obvious.

Maybe they just didn't want to be rude.

*** * ***

They were in his office and Bryony was holding him.

Lysandre had no idea how, considering the top of her head barely reached his collarbone and he was confident that he was pretty heavy; but she was holding him, and it felt nice. It felt nice to be held, to hold someone, to let someone else know how he felt, it felt nice to _form bonds_.

His time spent with Sycamore always felt nice but there was no way he would have let him touch him like that. There was no way he would have let anyone touch him at all, actually.

“You're so tense,” Bryony said against the fur of his coat. She had a habit of talking with her mouth against fabric.

They stayed like this for a long time. Bryony's hair smelled like smoke.

When Lysandre shifted to move away from her, she let him, because she could tell he was starting to get uncomfortable with the lack of personal space. Lysandre was like a locked safe; in it he stored everything he didn't want anyone to see, and it seemed like what he didn't want anyone to see was everything.

They sat at his desk, Bryony still thinking about men locked like boxes and the keys needed to open them.

“I was wondering...” she said, her voice very low, as if she was hoping Lysandre wouldn't hear. He let her continue, looking at her face, and the faint blush that was starting to appear there. “Why... um... why didn't you try to...”

He had a feeling he knew what she was going to ask.

“Is this about professor Sycamore and me?” He was going to let her say it but he couldn't stand how red her face was, or how he suddenly felt the weight of Sycamore's hands on his shoulders.

“I-I mean, I thought... I thought he liked you a lot,” she stammered.

“You thought he 'liked' me... why?”

Bryony laughed nervously.

“Everyone knows he was always talking about you as if you were the best thing to have ever happened to Kalos,” she said very fast. “I've seen you together in the café... a few times...”

Sometimes he forgot that his “employees” had a life outside of being part of Team Flare, or rather, that they had one before the world became what it was now.

“Well, I'm sure Augustine Sycamore's interest in me was purely academic,” Lysandre said, trying his best to sound as neutral as possible, even as he felt Sycamore's fingers against his jaw.

“I'm sure a lot of people would have liked him to be as 'academic' with them as he was with you, then,” Bryony retorted. She was smiling, but her face had gotten three times redder than it already was.

Lysandre opened his mouth to say something, but closed it instead. Sycamore was giggling against his back, and he felt like his entire body was shaking because of it.

“I-I'm sorry,” Bryony said upon seeing that he wasn't reacting. “This is an inappropriate time to joke around. I apologize.”

“It's fine,” Lysandre finally said, looking at her tie. “I never thought about it like that before. I suppose he was very enthusiastic about me.”

Bryony was about to say, “it's a shame you never talked to him about it,” but it probably wasn't a very good idea. It was too late anyway, just like it was too late for her and Celosia, but she _wasn't_ thinking about that now.

She was, though.

Lysandre put his hand on the desk and she took it, because she figured that was what he wanted. He let her.

“I think Mable is jealous of us,” she said without thinking.

Lysandre frowned. “Why?”

“She thought, uh... she thought she would be the one you'd go to once we won, I think.”

“That's interesting.”

He had never really thought about this before. Surely Mable was as good a scientist and Team Flare member as Bryony was, but there was no way he could have talked to her about the way he felt. Bryony _understood_.

“She likes you a lot,” she added. “We all do.”

Sycamore was hugging him, holding him very close, whispering something against his hair he couldn't make out. He would have asked him what he was saying, but Bryony was there, and he wasn't going to talk to his imaginary friend in front of someone, even her.

He pressed her hand slightly.

“I'm not sure what to say to this.”

“That's fine.” She was smiling, but it wasn't reaching her eyes just yet. “I'm not expecting you to say anything.” She wanted to say that she could see it was hard for him, but she didn't, because she wasn't sure how he'd react to that. They hadn't _exactly_ opened up to each other; mostly talked about what they had in common – dead people – and shared physical contact, rarely in public, and often awkwardly. It was obvious Lysandre wasn't used to it.

Sometimes she thought, _wasn't this what he wanted?_ They were all together now, and they were all that was left, and Sycamore was dead, and Celosia too, and if they truly were immortal like Xerosic had said they would have to spend a long time together.

He was still good at leading, though; but they needed something else now that everything was destroyed and everyone was dead and buried underground. Bryony could see this, but Lysandre couldn't, too busy staring at walls sometimes as if he saw something there.

They never talked about that.

“Do you believe in life after death?” Bryony asked suddenly. They were still holding hands.

 _I believe in grief-induced hallucinations_ , Lysandre thought, but it was harsh, and he realized he didn't want to be harsh anymore. Sycamore was still there, holding him, talking about trees and holes and death.

“I don't know,” Lysandre said. “I suppose I don't.”

Bryony put her other hand on top of Lysandre's.

“Why not? Don't you want to think that... maybe... professor Sycamore and Celosia are somewhere nice, looking out for us?”

She was smiling, her whole face beaming this time, but Lysandre was too tense to reciprocate, thinking about the weight of a dead man against him.

“I guess that would be a comforting thought,” he said, unable to talk about the fact that he had been seeing Sycamore ever since he buried him in the ground weeks prior. In a way, he was already looking out for him.

It wasn't a very comforting way.

“Don't say that,” Sycamore whispered in his ear.

Bryony let go of his hand. “Would you like to pray?” Lysandre looked at her as if he couldn't understand what she had just said. She lowered her gaze. “I used to do it with my mom when I was little. It's very calming.”

He thought about how all the pokémon were dead. What about the legendaries? He had been fairly sure that the ultimate weapon had succumbed to release the blast, not to mention the collapse of the HQ. Wouldn't praying to the others – if they were still there – be considered an insult?

His hands were trembling a little.

“I don't think I've ever done this before,” he admitted.

Bryony smiled. “That's alright. I can show you... if you want to do it, I mean.” Her voice was steady, but her words seemed to contradict it.

“Sure.”

She stood up and took his hand to guide him to the free space behind his desk. There, she knelt and gestured to him to do the same thing.

“We can pray to Arceus. I think They will listen.” Lysandre wasn't so sure about that, but there was no harm in trying. Bryony took his hands in hers.

“You need to join them together, and close your eyes, and think about... something good. Something you want Them to know about.” She paused, biting her lower lip. “Maybe we should tell Them we're sorry.”

 _Are we sorry?_ Lysandre thought, but he didn't say it. Instead he put his hands together, closed his eyes, and prayed in silence for forgiveness to a God who probably hated him already, the feeling of Sycamore's chest pressed against his back so strong he couldn't focus properly.

Despite this, Lysandre had to admit it _was_ calming.

*** * ***

Xerosic had taken blood samples. There was a tension in the air that none of them could ignore. Now that all the corpses had been gotten rid of – or at least, the large majority of them – they could fully realize that they were the only ones left in this world.

Some of the lower recruits had taken a habit of fighting among themselves, as if they were trying to determine which ones were immortal by how many of the others they could defeat. Now that the pokémon were gone, all that was left was fighting with bare hands and teeth and nails, and sometimes when he was walking down the streets of Lumiose, Lysandre would run into a group of them in a circle, cheering and whistling at the two who were fighting in the middle. Malva had told him to let them do it; that it was natural for them to want to release their frustration and fear through violence, but he hated it, he hated it because it reminded him that he had ruined everything instead of fixing it, he hated it because whenever it happened he could feel Sycamore holding his chest very tightly as if he was trying to suffocate him.

Sycamore would tell him that it was good, that it would help find those who were the most worthy of staying and rebuilding the world, and maybe weeks prior he would have agreed.

But weeks prior the world was still intact, and he had never walked on people fighting viciously with their bare hands in front of an audience.

Maybe he should have killed everyone in the end, Team Flare included.

*** * ***

Malva's results came out negative.

This was also the case for the large majority of the lower recruits, as they had been farther away from the machine at the time it went off.

There were no more reason to rejoice about immortality than to rejoice about mortality, Lysandre thought, and he felt tired, tired of all the things he had done, tired of all the things he had left to do now that he was to live for ever to take care of what was left.

At least he still had Bryony.

She was asking him to pray with her every day now. He still didn't know whether she was trying to help him deal with things or if she just felt better praying with someone. In any case, he didn't mind. Praying wasn't something he would have thought to do on his own, and to be fair, he didn't put much faith into it, but kneeling against Bryony in silence and thinking about forgiveness for what he did felt _nice_.

Almost peaceful.

In these moments, even the feeling of Sycamore's body felt like a blessing; of course it was a lie, a fake ghost created by his mind, but it was still him, and when he said the words, even to taunt him, it was still his voice.

“What would you tell him if he could see us now?” Bryony asked one day, after they prayed.

“Sorry.”

There wasn't much else to say.

“Even now... I still can't really believe that we've lost Celosia for ever. I'm expecting her to show up at any moment...” Bryony's face was obscured by her bangs. “Living for ever is going to be lonely without her...”

Lysandre put his hand on her arm.

*** * ***

They had started rebuilding proper now – cleaning the rubbles, washing away the blood, picking houses to live in. It was going to take a long time; thankfully, some of them had all the time in the world.

This development had a major disadvantage: they were now divided between those who were going to live for ever, and those who were not. Malva had agreed to take care of those unfortunate – or fortunate, sometimes, it was hard to tell – to still be mortal, and keep them in check. Still, this was worrying.

“They've always been mortal, I don't know what they're complaining about,” Aliana hissed one day, as they were sitting in one of the tall buildings of Lumiose, waiting for Xerosic and Mable to check which computers were still functional. Malva had taken the grunts with her to clean up the remains of Prism Tower.

“Don't be cruel,” Lysandre said. “It's a privilege we have that they don't. I understand their anger.”

“A _privilege_?” He turned to look at Mable. She had left Xerosic to take care of the last room. Her visor was still on her face, but her mouth was twisted in a snarl. “We can't die, and the world is a mess. I don't see how being able to stay here for ever is a privilege.”

“It gives us time to fix things,” Lysandre said, unfazed by her wrath.

“There's nothing to fix anymore!” It sounded like Mable had been keeping all of this inside of her for weeks and it was just now getting out. “Everyone except us is gone, and it's all our fault! It's all _your_ fault!”

She was screaming, almost, her voice like a painful wail. Lysandre found himself unable to answer; Sycamore was holding his chest so tightly that, had he been real, he would have probably broken his ribcage. Instead, Bryony put a hand on his arm to stand up.

“No one forced you to join this! You knew what would happen. We had to make sacrifices to build a better world.”

“What's better about this world?” She ripped off her visor from her face, and threw it on the ground near Lysandre's feet. “Everything is in ruins! We're all fighting! You, of all people, should agree with me! Celosia _died_ because of us! Because of him!”

Her face was like nothing Lysandre had ever seen before, almost like the face of a hurt pokémon both fighting for its life and begging for mercy, and the fact that he wasn't reacting and just looking at her seemed to infuriate her even more; until her fist went off to meet with his face and he didn't move and just let her punch him as hard as she could.

Very hard, actually.

When Xerosic came back, Mable had stormed off and Bryony was holding Lysandre's face in her hands. He was bleeding – his upper lip and nose – but that was fine. Aliana shifted uncomfortably next to him.

“I'm sorry, this is all my fault,” she said, her hands covering her face.

“Actually, it's mine,” Lysandre replied very slowly.

No one else had anything to say after that.

He let Bryony take him outside and guide him back to the café without a word. Maybe Bryony was talking, he wasn't sure; everything he could hear was covered by the sound of Sycamore's voice very close to his ear, telling him how awful he was and how Mable was right and everything was his fault.

It was.

*** * ***

“I'm fine,” Lysandre repeated for the fifth time. Bryony was mending to his hurt lip, but he didn't like her touching him; not when Sycamore's hands were already on his neck.

“Why didn't you dodge it?” Bryony sounded almost hurt, which was strange. “She wasn't even that fast. Did you want her to punch you?”

“Yes.” There was no point in lying.

“That's not funny, Lysandre. This is serious.” She was worried, and she was motherly, and it should have felt good, but it felt disgusting. “If you act like this, things are going to get worse.”

“I know.”

She leaned over to hold him in her arms. Her shoulders were shaking, and it took him a minute to register she was crying.

“We'll manage, right? You said we'll manage.” She was sobbing so loud, he had a hard time understanding what she was saying. “I trust you.”

“Of course,” he said, but he didn't know if he believed that anymore – no, he knew he didn't believe it, but he didn't know if he could still pretend that he did. He was bleeding on Bryony's clothes, and she wouldn't stop crying, and crying, and Sycamore was crying too, or maybe mock-crying, he couldn't tell at this point, pulling on his hair as if he was trying to rip it off, but he couldn't, because he wasn't real.

“Let's pray,” Lysandre said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm using "they" pronouns for arceus because it seems odd to me to refer to a God with "it"... and they're genderless, so.  
> there will be a third part. it will involve A.Z., and then there will be two endings, because i have two ending ideas and i want to use them both. 
> 
> i'd like to thank people for the feedback i got on the first part... it means a lot to me because this is the first serious story EVER i'm publishing in english, and the first serious story i'm working on in years regardless of language. cheers


	3. ashes

Had it been a month, or three, or a week, or a second, Lysandre often thought. The world seemed suddenly slow and small now that they were the only ones left populating it. Perhaps it truly was.

And so it had been a month, or two maybe, when the “snow” first fell on Lumiose City. Of course, it wasn't actually snow; actual snow was rare in Lumiose, even in winter. It was ashes, carried by the wind, ashes of burnt corpses and burnt buildings and burnt trees, falling from the sky.

It was fitting, in a way. The desecrated remains of the old world coming to cover the new one.

It was after the first “snowfall” that the lower recruits started whispering about a strange figure who roamed around Lumiose City whom they called “the giant” due to his imposing height. As far as Lysandre was concerned, those were just rumors; he had never seen the so-called giant, and to be perfectly honest, the ones who claimed to have seen him wouldn't be the first to have borne witness to made-up things.

It wasn't exactly a comforting thing to think about, though. Sycamore was heavy on his back whenever it crossed his mind. Perhaps they were all doomed to see things that weren't there, slowly filling the now empty world with imaginary ghosts.

*** * ***  

A week after the incident with Mable, Lysandre received a call from Bryony informing him that the blue haired scientist wanted to talk. He had been – consciously or not – avoiding her, that was a fact. She had been, also, maybe – he couldn't be sure, of course.

He had been spending a lot of time discussing their future plans with Xerosic and Malva, in dark offices, watching the ashes outside the window as they danced in the wind. They weren't Team Flare anymore, really. They were the start of a new world.

It had not been easy at first, ignoring Sycamore's constant badgering during these meetings, but soon enough he had once again mastered the art of indifference. He shivered still when he felt cold fingers on the back of his neck, or cold breath on his cheek, but he could maintain his composure well enough. The effort left him exhausted, to the point where he had to compromise and sleep little by little to avoid the recurring nightmares.

The fire in his thoughts seemed never-ending.

With all these preoccupations, casually avoiding Mable had been easy, although whenever he so much as spotted her, Sycamore would suddenly grab at his throat, choking him almost.

He sent a message back to Bryony, agreeing to see her later in the day in front of the café. He needed fresh air – even if said air carried the ashes of burnt corpses.

He thought about what he was going to do in the meantime. He had slept around two hours; that was probably enough. He felt a weight against him suddenly, like someone hugging him from behind, clutching at his chest; he grabbed his office chair to prevent himself from falling.

“Lys...” Sycamore breathed against his back, using the nickname he had never uttered when he was alive.

When the real Sycamore was alive.

“Aren't you tired, Lys? Let's rest together, okay?”

His gentle tone was more painful than any of his coldest accusations. Lysandre felt like his heart was about to implode. Instead, of course, a wave of nausea washed over him.

“Not now,” he groaned, holding the chair too tightly, hurting his fingers. “I don't have time for you.”

Sycamore let go of him, slowly.

“You always say that. You never have time for me. You never had.”

Suddenly he was in Lysandre's face, grabbing at it, pinching a cheek, pushing in his eye sockets, trying to force fingers inside his mouth. Lysandre struggled and gagged, but in a second it was finished, leaving him bent over in front of the desk in pain or anguish, or both.

“You're no fun,” Sycamore spat, and he was gone, Lysandre finally alone and out of breath.

Maybe he did need more sleep in the end.

*** * ***

When he got out at noon and saw Mable waiting for him, the first thing he noticed was that her face was very red. Faces seemed like open books once they were no longer protected by a visor, Lysandre thought. Perhaps hiding her face for so long had made her neglect hiding her emotions.

He walked up to her, and when she saw he had arrived, she gasped. Had she always been like this? He couldn't remember.

“Thank you for coming,” she said with a shy smile on her lips.

He said nothing, simply waited for her to explain what she wanted to talk about. The incident, of course; but what was there left to say?

“I wanted to apologize for punching you,” she continued, mumbling half the words, her smile becoming a pained grimace. “It was inappropriate...”

“No, it wasn't,” Lysandre said gently – or well, as gently as he could. “You were angry with me. I understand. There's no need to apologize.”

“I punched you!” Mable's voice had gotten louder, and she was sort of looking at him.

“That's fine. I'm not injured, am I?”

Mable frowned, and Lysandre remembered the expression on her face as she had hit him.

“I don't understand you,” she let out finally, back to staring at the ground between them.

“What do you mean?”

“You've changed. The Lysandre from before... before the machine went off... would have scolded me. He would have never let this go unpunished!”

Lysandre raised his eyebrows. “Do you want to be punished?”

The question took her by surprise and she blushed, putting a hand in front of her mouth. Slowly, she shook her head.

“The Mable from before wouldn't have punched me, either,” he continued, “so this is irrelevant. We've all changed.”

Avoiding his gaze still, she took a step towards him.

“But you changed especially. I thought... once you would get what you wanted... what we wanted! I thought you would be happy.”

“Perhaps this isn't exactly what I wanted,” Lysandre said, trying to read the expression on her face. Her traits contorted into something that was between disbelief and anger – or was it disgust?

“The Lysandre from before would have never admitted he was wrong.” Her voice was back to half-mumbling. She seemed deep in thoughts. “That's what changed, isn't it?”

“Is that so bad?” he chuckled, feeling lost. He couldn't guess what she was thinking about at all, even from the change of expressions on her face. They went by too fast.

She smiled, now suddenly very close, and looked up to him.

“I shouldn't have punched you... but I didn't know how to...”

“How to..?” Lysandre repeated, in an attempt to encourage her.

Instead of replying, she got closer somehow, too close, and suddenly she was pulling at his fur–collar and her lips were on his.

As he registered the warm feeling, he felt hands around his neck and a body against his back, grinding against him, and Sycamore's voice right against his ear.

“Are you _cheating_ on me?”

He pushed her away – too strongly. He was shaking. He didn't want to look at her face.

“I thought...” she started.

“You are mistaken,” Lysandre cut her off, his voice low and harsh, his breathing uneven. Sycamore wouldn't let go of his throat.

“Why?” He looked at her even though he had no desire to. She was more puzzled than angry. “What's wrong with me? I thought... I thought... we could... you and me... there aren't many people left...”

“What are you suggesting, exactly?” His difficulty breathing made expressing anger near impossible. In a desperate and meaningless gesture, he raised his hands to his neck in an attempt to make Sycamore let go.

“All that's left now is ashes,” Mable said. “I thought we would get close. You are a fine man. Pining for the dead serves no purpose!”

He felt Sycamore's presence dispersing before vanishing completely. He touched his throat.

Mable could tell she had gone too far. There was something in Lysandre's attitude that had suddenly changed. His hands were touching his neck as if to check it was still there and intact. He had a look in his eyes she had rarely seen before, and never previous to the new state of the world. The look of a man who had lost it all.

“I apologize,” she said quickly, bowing. “That was even more inappropriate than punching you.”

“Let's leave it at this.” He looked her in the eyes as she straightened her back. “Forget about it. Punching me... and everything else.”

“Boss...” Her voice had lost the confidence she had gained from the kiss. He felt bad for being so harsh. She wasn't a child, but she had more life and hope in her than he did. None of what was happening was her fault. She was just... trying to cope with it.

“As you are,” Sycamore muttered in the wind, suddenly there again, his hand heavy on Lysandre's shoulder, like the icy claws of a murkrow bearing bad news.

He thought about his murkrow. Mable was still looking at him, unsure of what to do.

“Go away,” he said finally. “Please. I need time alone.”

“Outside? In the ashes?”

“Yes.”

She put her hand up in the air, admitting defeat. “Fine, I'll leave you alone. I ruined things enough already...”

He shook his head, but she wasn't looking at him.

“I'm sorry again. Please don't overdo it.” She smiled, looking at nothing in particular. “I... care about you. Boss.”

With that she was gone, running off to spy on lower recruits or to tell Aliana about how bothersome he had been towards her. Or maybe she would tell Bryony she had tried to confess but instead messed everything up.

Love, Lysandre thought. All that's left of it is ashes.

*** * ***

After Mable's attempt at a confession, Sycamore became unbearable.

He was an endless flow of insults and reproaches and blames, and he would hit him hard when he was discussing with Xerosic, and he would scratch at his face or chest when he was praying with Bryony, and he would yell and cry and yell and laugh whenever Lysandre so much as opened his mouth to talk in public.

It was a constant state of anxiety. To top it all off, his mind had devised a twist to his usual nightmares; now, in between two dreams of huge fire and destruction, Lysandre would dream he was in a forest, chasing what he first thought to be Xerneas, but always turned out to be Sycamore. Even as he realized who his prey really was, the Lysandre in his dreams would not hesitate. When he raised his left hand he would have claws, and with them he would cut off his head.

Unlike the nightmares involving fire, Sycamore was never there when he woke up. Instead, he was alone, forced to think back to what he had done in his sleep.

One time, on a night where he had had to give up on avoiding rest and slept in a proper bed, he woke up before he could deal the final blow. He got up quickly, put on some clothes, and got out. It must have been no more than one hour after midnight. In the sky above Lumiose, he could see more stars than he would have expected.

That was when he first saw him, standing in front of Prism Tower.

The giant.

Could he be real? Or could they all be dreaming the same man? But he was dreaming a man already, and he didn't need another.

The stranger's nickname was well deserved. Even from afar, Lysandre could tell that he was at least twice his size, if not more. He could not see his face, but he could see a mass of light hair emerging from a plain hat.

There was something oddly soothing about this man. Lysandre felt drawn to his presence – was that why he had woken up early?

Before he could focus on the strangeness of this situation, he took a step forward. Then another. Then another.

His shoes made the pavement vibrate, or sing as Sycamore might have said – the real one. The sounds echoed until they reached the man.

He turned around.

His face had a harshness to it that made it so that he seemed both very tough and very soft. He was old, but there could be doubt whether his wrinkles had been caused by age, or worry.

When he spotted the red haired silhouette in the glow of the stars, he smiled.

Lysandre stopped walking.

Who was this man? He felt familiar, but he was sure he had never ever seen such a large individual. Perhaps he truly was another hallucination, or maybe Lysandre was still dreaming in his bed.

Noticing he had stopped, the giant's smile grew larger.

“Bonsoir,” he said, his voice deep, with an accent that Lysandre couldn't place at all.

Sycamore was constantly talking to him, so speech was no proof. The stranger took a step towards him.

“I am not a product of your mind, if that is what worries you.”

Of course, Sycamore had never denied that he was made up, but was that truly enough–

“You don't have to believe me, I suppose. I wanted to talk to you.”

Lysandre opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. In the coldness of the lumiosian night, he was sweating.

“Who are you?” he asked, taking half a step backwards.

“My name is AZ.”

Lysandre frowned. “AZ? That's the name of the king from that old legend...”

“Is it a legend?” the giant retorted, still smiling softly. His long hair was swinging in the wind.

Realizing he was letting the man's strange words and appearance distract him, Lysandre shook his head.

“Why are you here? You shouldn't be alive.”

The statement made AZ's smile drop. He lowered his gaze. His face suddenly showed an emotion that Lysandre could only describe as a great despair.

“Indeed, I shouldn't be, but I am. Don't you share these thoughts?”

Unsure of what the giant meant, Lysandre said nothing.

“You who worked towards activating the machine after we had worked so hard to bury it far away from the eyes of corrupt men... should you be alive?”

Lysandre started walking towards him again in an attempt to study him more closely, his eyes half shut from concentration. “Why shouldn't I be? I need to fix what I've done.”

“What a proud answer,” AZ said, his smile back on his face. “I am glad to hear it.”

He was very close to him now. Lysandre didn't know it was possible to be this tall. There was something inhuman about it, but he felt no threat. If anything, the giant was the most peaceful being he had run into in the last few weeks. Yet, there was something about him...

Now that he was so near, he could see perfectly the clothes he was wearing. They were dirty and in bad shape. They looked like they could barely cover his body. Finally managing to look away, Lysandre shook his head slowly.

“This still doesn't tell me how you've survived,” he insisted, lifting his head to search for AZ's eyes. The giant held his gaze calmly. Having to look up at someone was surprisingly embarrassing. It made Lysandre feel small and helpless, similar to when Sycamore was haunting him.

The ghost of his former friend, for once, was thankfully absent.

“I've lived through it before. My own creation can't destroy me anymore than it already has.”

AZ's voice was deep, and Lysandre had the odd thought that it reminded him of his father's father. He was still smiling, but there was no trace of happiness in his eyes.

Lysandre looked away, puzzled. Was he confronting a mad man? A four meters tall mad man? Could such a coincidence exist? He smirked – or tried to, but instead looked closer to someone having eaten something particularly bitter.

“Are you trying to make me believe that you're AZ, the old king? I'm sorry to say this, you look very impressive, but you'll need better arguments to...”

There was a rustling sound, and Lysandre looked up to see AZ taking out a key he had hidden under his clothes. A key he had only seen before in illustrations, accompanying legends about the weapon.  
“...convince me?” He stumbled on his words, staring at the key in disbelief. “Are you serious? What is this?”

“Something you were looking for, I believe,” AZ said, his voice neutral. “An artifact needed to activate a machine. A machine that it seems you managed to break into even without the artifact.”

“That's preposterous! You don't exist!”

Unexpectedly, AZ started laughing, a low sound that resonated in the streets and seemed to make the whole tower vibrate.

“A lot of things you believe do not exist do, boy. Here, take it.” He dropped the key, and Lysandre caught it, almost toppling over, still staring, unable to believe what he was seeing. “There's no need for it anymore in this world. My brother should have made sure the whole apparatus had been destroyed... made sure no one could be foolish enough to make it work once more.”

“Foolish,” Lysandre repeated, still looking at the key.

The ashes were slowly falling on it, and in his open palms. They were cold, like everything else.

“I'm sorry.” Lysandre was surprised to hear himself say these words.

AZ sighed.

“A long time ago... A very long time ago... I was sorry, as well. But being sorry is not enough.”

“I know,” Lysandre whispered.

They said nothing for what seemed like hours to him, standing still in the falling ashes, the key now warm in his open hands. He surprised himself by thinking about Sycamore – his Sycamore, the ghost one. Where was he? This was such a perfect occasion to remind him of all he had ruined... but in the presence of the giant, Lysandre felt peaceful. There was a comfort in knowing they had both been wrong to such a terrifying point.

“Why did you do it?” AZ asked suddenly, and the peace in Lysandre's mind seemed to break. He thought he felt a hand on his shoulder but when he looked, no one was there. Nothing was there.

He dropped the key on the ground. It made a noise as it landed that Lysandre found terrifying without being able to pinpoint why. It was loud and reminded him of when the machine was falling apart.

“I thought it was what I was meant to do,” he said, almost in a whisper, before kneeling down to pick up the key.

“I acted out of anger, but you acted out of pride. How fitting,” AZ remarked. His tone was nowhere near judgmental, but Lysandre felt uneasy. He had never thought of what he had done as a result of pride, but the ancient king was right.

It was his misplaced faith in the idea that he had been chosen in order to lead the elite towards a new, better world that caused him to build his plans. That, and the conviction that a new war would soon break out if the population kept rising.

Sycamore – the real one, although he was worried conjuring his memory might cause the ghost to appear – thought that humans would always find a way to share resources. That if a catastrophe was to happen, they would rise against it as one, with the help of pokémon. He never discussed Lysandre's ideas, although Lysandre rarely shared them fully, instead offering his own more optimistic suggestions. Perhaps it had been an attempt to appease him.

It had failed, of course. He felt something jabbing at his sides suddenly, and a warm breath against his neck, and sighed.

Sycamore laughed in his ear in reply.

“You're late,” Lysandre said to him, barely noticing he was addressing the ghost while around another person. He thought AZ wouldn't hear his whisper, but the giant leaned forward a little, as if to see whether someone else was there.

“Who are you talking to?” he asked.

“It said in the legends that you were angry because your companion, Floette, had died,” Lysandre replied. “Do you think about her often since she left you?”

AZ made a sound like a laugh, or a sob.

“She's always on my mind. I wish she would come back to me...”

Lysandre smiled, even as he felt Sycamore's fingers in his hair.

“I'm sure she will, once she's ready.”

He felt the touch of Sycamore getting more urgent, more disturbing. He couldn't stand it in front of this man.

“Now, if you don't mind... I hope we can meet again.”

“I know we will,” AZ said with confidence, and without any further word, even as Lysandre was the one who was moving to leave, he turned around and disappeared in a nearby street, his tall silhouette still detaching in the night.

Once back in his room, Sycamore seemed to vanish. It felt lonely, somehow.

As he fell asleep once again in his bedroom until morning, holding the key in his hand, Lysandre dreamed of a tall man and a small pokémon, reuniting happily after being apart for thousands of years.

*** * ***

“I'm worried about you.”

He didn't want to face her, not really, but he had to; it was two days after his meeting with AZ, two days he had gone through in a daze, barely registering what he was doing, barely acknowledging Sycamore's touch and snide remarks. It had been a long time since he had last prayed with Bryony.

Her eyes betrayed her mood. She did seem worried; he wished she could just cover her face again, let him ignore how she felt so he didn't have to feel guilty about it.

“Talk to me,” she said, pleading.

“I'm fine, really. We've been steadily making progress towards the reconstruction and everything is going as smoothly as possible, there's really no need to...”

She grabbed his arm. The physical contact from another being that wasn't a construct made up in his head startled him.

“Lysandre. I'm worried about _you_ , not how smoothly things are going. I've been trying to talk to you in private since I met up with Mable...”

“Oh.” Lysandre blinked. “What did she tell you?”

Bryony made an embarrassed face, tinted with something like concern.

“She told me she tried to make her feelings more obvious and you reacted poorly.”

“She kissed me,” Lysandre started to protest; Bryony squeezed his arm, shaking her head.

“I know. I'm sorry. I never thought she'd do that... I don't think she did, either.”

Lysandre scoffed, but then Bryony was staring at him right in his eyes with that air of worry.

“That's not what I wanted to talk to you about, though.”

“I know,” he said softly. It felt like Sycamore could appear at any moment, looming over them like the ghost he wanted to be.

Bryony bit her lower lip and sighed.

“You've been acting strange since... he died. I know how hard it's been, and we've helped each other through it, but... you're hiding something, aren't you?”

There he was.

Standing behind her, his hair swinging slowly in the non-existent wind – they were in his office, for Arceus' sake.

Sycamore smiled.

Looking back at Bryony, who had noticed his glance, he thought about the day he buried Sycamore. He thought about the useless, weightless objects that used to be pokéballs holding his team. He thought about the giant. He thought about the key he kept hidden in his coat pocket at all times.

There was a hand on his shoulder and another on his chest and another smoothing his back and another squeezing his arm and that was the one he needed to focus on. The real one.

“I... I'm...”

“It's subtle, but I noticed, and Malva noticed, and I think Xerosic did also. I didn't want to talk to you about it... I thought maybe it was part of your grieving process, but it's become alarming.” She had spoken slowly at first, then faster and faster as if she thought she might not have had the strength to say it otherwise.

“I'm fine,” Lysandre managed to spit out, his voice as firm as it had ever been – at least back before everything had fallen apart. “I'm fine.”

Bryony frowned, letting go of her arm to grab his jacket with both hands, her face held up high and her eyes getting wet.

“No, you're not! Don't lie!” she cried out, making him gasp. “I've seen how you act: you pretend everything is fine so you can keep on leading us and giving orders but I've seen – and Malva has seen, and Xerosic, and others I'm sure – the way you shudder sometimes for no good reason, the way you stare at walls, the way you sometimes mumbled to yourself as if talking to someone. You're so tense, you always seem like you're on the verge of breaking apart, drinking coffee after coffee to hide the fact you don't want to sleep. Wake up!” she yelled, her voice a little hoarse. “We've talked about this before, we need you to stay together and you need us to not... fall apart...”

Lysandre breathed in slowly. Short bursts of air like short bursts of life. If he could calm down... get Sycamore away... but instead he felt the weight of his non-existent body shift closer against his back.

“I'm sorry,” he said, empty words for empty ghosts built on empty promises.

“You know that's not what I want to hear.” She was still looking at his face. He wanted to claw at it, make it disappear. A faceless leader is better for such a great cause, right? But it wasn't the cause that mattered in the end. He felt her squeeze his arm again. “I want to help you. This can't go on.”

“You're right,” Lysandre replied, shaking his head. “This can't go on, but how do you expect me to fix it? None of what we worked so hard to build matters now. Malva is going to die... most of us are. I've doomed us all.”

Sycamore was gently caressing his neck, light fingers brushing against his pulse. In other circumstances, in another time, with a Sycamore who was alive and real, he might have found the gesture erotic. It just made the way it felt worse.

With a soft sigh, Bryony leaned against him, her face pressed against the fabric of his overpriced jacket.

“Don't say that. That doesn't help. We'll figure things out. Malva is obviously stronger than you are, anyway.”

Before everything that had occurred, he might have been upset by this accusation, but instead he chuckled, feeling the touch against his skin fading away.

“Tell me about him,” Bryony added after a short silence. Lysandre closed his eyes.

“I see him a lot. I know he's not real.”

“If you know he's not real then why don't you let go?” Her face rose up again; she had cried a little. He couldn't see it, but he could smell it, damp and salty. “It's not healthy. It won't bring him back.”

“It's better than not having him at all, I suppose.”

“That's what I thought as well, but that's not true. You have us instead. We're real.”

He felt fingers somewhere against his temple and opened his eyes, but it was Bryony, her hand resting against the side of his face.

“We don't need to carry all these ashes by ourselves. You know that.”

“Of course.” A whisper, a sigh.

She tried to smile, a bit too sad, perhaps.

“Come eat with us. You've stayed hidden in that dusty office for so long... One of the teams charged with cleaning up buildings found tons of food rations a few days ago. We can share.”

Sharing... the word made him think of Sycamore's optimistic smile.

“Alright. Let's see how those taste.”

She smiled, and this time her face beamed. _Optimism_ , Lysandre thought. _Perhaps the one thing fire couldn't take from us._

*** * ***

The food tasted weird, and in any other circumstances he would have laughed at the prospect of ever eating it, but sitting between Malva and Bryony, watching everyone else enjoy a quiet moment sharing a meal, it felt like the best thing he had eaten in a long, long time.

He shuffled on his seat and felt the coldness of the giant's key in his coat pocket, pressing against the fabric of his shirt. Bryony seemed to tell something was going on, and she turned towards him.

“Sorry this is sub-par compared to what we used to serve,” she said after swallowing a handful of rice. “I think our recruits did their best, all things considered.”

“It's alright,” Lysandre replied, resisting the urge to fumble through his coat to touch the key. He needed to see the giant again as soon as possible.

“They wanted to impress you, I think. You should congratulate them after the meal.”

“I'll be sure to do that, then.” He smiled. He felt more confident surrounded by people. Here, he was strong. He could lead, as long as people would follow. Alone with Bryony, he found himself too easily drawn towards his own weaknesses.

It was always better than being on his own with only his made-up ghost as company, though.

He felt a hand on his arm and turned his head to see what Malva wanted. She had that confident glimmer in her eyes again. That was a relief. He needed this Malva to be in charge.

“You look good,” she said happily. “I'm glad you decided to join us. They need to see you, you know. We all do.”

And wasn't that strange, thinking back – that as much as he had rejected the idea that humans could unite to try and make the world a better place, instead deciding that there was nothing else they could do but start over, unity was what was making them strive in the end? Of course, perhaps it was easier to unite when you were already under the same banner...

“I'm glad to be here. We're making good progress, I think.”

“They're still fighting a lot, and it's still ugly, but it could be a lot worse, I think. We'll make Kalos into the beautiful world it was always meant to be!”

Lysandre tried to keep his smile as sincere as he could. He felt a bit nauseous all of a sudden. He did not want Sycamore to come back here and now. He did not want to leave abruptly, either.

Instead, he turned towards Bryony again. She didn't notice right away; and instead of attempting to get her attention, Lysandre watched her laugh and chat with Aliana sitting next to her. Mable wasn't very far. The thought was strange, and reminded him of what had happened between them prior. The foreign feeling of lips pressed against his own. He felt his stomach clench.

He had eaten quite a few meals in the company of Augustine Sycamore, most of them he had prepared himself. The professor often forgot to eat, too caught up in this or that, leaving Lysandre to take care of him. He was always so thankful for anything others would do for him; a nice change from people who Lysandre had tried to help and who had barely cared about it. Thinking about the soft expression on Sycamore's face as he would thank him only brought him more nausea.

He wasn't very hungry anymore. A pity. He cleared his throat and Bryony startled.

“I'm sorry,” she said, turning towards him once more. “You should have said something if you wanted me to react.”

“It's alright. I was observing you.” He looked at her face, the sight of food suddenly unpleasant. “What were you talking about?”

Bryony smiled. “Oh, nothing much. Aliana has had her eyes on one of our recruits, it seems. She wanted advice, but I'm mostly used to wooing women.”

She played with her food a little, hesitant. Lysandre did his best to look away. He breathed in abruptly when she dropped her fork against her plate, the noise upsetting his senses.

“What about you?” she asked, her smile too wide. Smug.

“What about me?” Lysandre repeated, frowning.

“Do you have experience wooing men?”

He made a face like he had just swallowed something very sour. It made her giggle, a happy sound she covered with her hand.

“Well,” Lysandre said.

“Well?” She leaned forward. There was no way other people at their table hadn't heard what they were discussing.

Lysandre picked up his fork again before remembering he wasn't hungry anymore.

“I suppose you could say that, although perhaps not as you mean it,” he phrased carefully.

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“I'm experienced in 'wooing' people to get them to trust me. My mother said I was born charismatic.”

Bryony laughed, surely entertained by the idea of a baby Lysandre with great charisma.

“Not in the romantic sense, then, is what you meant,” she said once she'd calmed down a little.

“No, not in the romantic sense, I'm afraid, although I'm sure it's had that effect once or twice.”

He sounded sadder about it than he had meant to, and he could see that she had heard it, and he could tell what she was going to say before she opened her mouth.

“What about the professor? Did you woo him?”

Lysandre tried to smile.

“It did not take much to woo Professor Sycamore. He is... was... an easily impressed man.” He felt nauseous again, and trapped in the anticipation of a surprise come-back from his ghost.

“You're not giving yourself enough credit,” Bryony retorted softly, putting her hand on his arm, searching for his eyes with hers. “You're the most impressive person I've had the pleasure to know.”

“The pleasure,” Lysandre repeated evenly. “Bryony, there's something I need to tell you.”

Her smile faded upon hearing his serious tone. She nodded.

“Let me finish my plate.” She took her fork but then turned her head in his direction again to add: “We should pray tonight.”

Lysandre said nothing, but she knew his silence was an agreement.

*** * ***

He waited for her outside of the building they had picked to hold their meal breaks, because he couldn't bear being around others again. It felt like a cold chill; or maybe it was the wind.

He had a thought, quick and ridiculous: he wanted Sycamore to come back, even as a tormenting presence. The ghost, demon, apparition, was an anchor of sorts, grounding him, reminding him of what he had broken, of what he had to work hard to build again.

Or maybe he missed feeling soft, cold fingers against the skin of his neck, waiting there as if to strangle him should the occasion present itself.

Definitely the wind.

He stared at the trees lining up the dark streets of Lumiose and did not move when he heard the door open behind him.

“I'm sorry,” Bryony said softly. She really did seem sorry, but there was nothing to be sorry for.

“Why?” Lysandre asked, unmoving still. She took a few steps towards him. The shoes he had had made for their outfits always sounded beautifully against the paved streets.

“For mentioning him even though you had told me how it pained you earlier today. It was a mistake. I was trying to cheer you up and...”

“It's alright,” Lysandre cut her off. He turned around to look at her.

“Is he... here?”

Her voice had a strange tone to it, as if she was afraid of his made up phantom.

“No.” There was no need for further details. Bryony smiled, relieved.

She put her hand on his arm and looked up to him.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

Lysandre found himself avoiding her eyes, but she pressed on, until their gazes met. Unable to find the words for what he wanted to confess, he thought back to when they had first met: she had seemed so young then, but she was brilliant and oh so full of life. He could tell right away she found him intimidating because she had spent their whole interview carefully avoiding looking at him directly. It seemed like centuries had passed since then.

“I met the giant.”

Bryony frowned. That was not what she had expected.

“Oh, so he is real, then? I figured he was born out of mass hysteria or something.” She frowned further, concentrating. “If he's real and alive, does that mean some pokémons could have survived? I know we don't want them to be used by humans, but the ecosystems...”

“Bryony,” Lysandre said. He searched through his coat and took out the key.

The green-haired scientist stopped talking once she spotted the artifact. He remembered his own reaction to it; a legendary item they had all only admired through drawings and schematics.

“That's...”

She extended her arm, and he gave her the key. Her hand was warm.

“Bryony, the reason why the machine exploded was because we forced it to work.”

She looked down at the key. There was more Lysandre felt he had to tell, but he closed his mouth.

They said nothing for a long time.

“I thought...” Bryony said finally, a voice barely above a whisper. “When Xerosic said you had found a way, I thought he meant we had found the key, or a substitute.”

“We had found a way to kick-start the machine that overrode the need of a key, but it seems more than that was overridden.”

“So,” she replied, but said nothing more.

He took a step towards her. “I'm–”

“Don't.” She shook her head, her bangs hitting the sides of her face. “I know. We're all sorry.”

She lifted the key and pressed it against her face. Her hands were shaking slightly.

“I don't... I don't want to blame you. It's pointless. It won't bring her back. It won't bring anyone back. It won't... make things go back the way they were.”

She was not crying, and her voice, although trembling, lacked any strong emotion. With her face turned down and her hair in the way, he couldn't see her expression.

“We have to move forward, and up. We can do great things. As we were meant to do. Right?”

She slowly lifted down the key. Her eyes were closed but somehow, Lysandre felt her looking straight at him.

“Yes.”

Bryony smiled.

He took the key from her. Her hand was cold.

“Did you ever look at someone and think, I want to stay with this person until we're both old enough to not care about anything else anymore?”

Lysandre clenched his fist against the key. ”I don't know. Maybe.”

He thought about cold arms and dark hair and promises he never let himself make.

“Sometimes I can't sleep and I wonder how I can still be there when she's not. I should have grabbed her quicker to run out of the room. I should have pushed her away when it got too bad. I should have been crushed by that ceiling instead of her.”

“Bryony...”

She shook her head. She was still smiling.

“I know. It's pointless.”

Lysandre carefully placed the key back inside his coat pocket. He felt a hand against his shoulder, but she was too far away from him.

“ _Missed me?_ ” The whisper made him shiver; or maybe it was the wind.

“If you could go back and change things, would you do it?” Bryony asked suddenly. He noticed she was still shaking and realized that in her hurry to meet up with him she hadn't even put her coat on. She had to be freezing.

“Yes,” he said right as Sycamore exclaimed “No!” way too close to his ear. He winced against his better judgment.

“I think that's why I pray,” Bryony said pensively, once again unaware of Lysandre's predicament. “If the giant is real, then maybe someone is listening... maybe someone can help us fix this.”

Sycamore laughed, but Lysandre did not react. Bryony was right.

Born from the ashes, perhaps... a hope could exist... as long as they chose to believe in it.

He followed her back inside in silence. The sounds of people finishing their meals lowered upon their arrival. Taking advantage of the fact that all the gazes were on him, Lysandre opened his arms wide and smiled at his teammates.

“Everyone, thank you! I appreciate your efforts towards making our lives better, and this world more and more perfect.”

Bryony chuckled behind him. Sycamore was lying against his back, lazily, saying nothing.

“Let us all up keep our chins up and work harder and harder to strive all together. Kalos as it is is but a flower waiting for the perfect occasion to finally bloom to its full potential. I am happy to see you doing your best to honor this fresh start we have given ourselves. Thank you so much.”

The scientist walked up to his left and started clapping happily. Lysandre followed after a second, waking up Sycamore who started clapping furiously himself, too close. Soon the other scientists were clapping also, and then everyone in the room was applauding, some even laughing or yelling congratulations.

Lysandre lifted his arms again to ask everyone to calm down, and then turned towards Bryony. She nodded solemnly before facing the crowd, her smile confident and her eyes sparkling.

“We would like to take this opportunity to enjoy meditation all together, united. The world as it stands now has survived a lot and we should be thankful that the universe, somehow, has given us its blessing.”

There were a few whispers, recruits in requisitioned clothes exchanging unsure glances; but then, Malva stood up, attracting all their gazes.

“I think that's a fantastic idea after all this turmoil. We know it's been hard, so let's take a moment to be grateful for our success, hm?”

She found Lysandre's eyes and smiled. Sycamore was slowly pressing his knuckles against his shoulder blades, one by one, making him shiver. A warm feeling, tainted with an inescapable sadness.

He startled slightly when Bryony clasped her hands together, making a loud, reverberating noise in the large room. He shook his head and followed her lead, closing his eyes, trying to focus on hope and optimism, and not on cold hands giving warm gestures, or old forgotten keys made obsolete by selfish decisions.

In the absolute silence that followed, he sighed, and opened one eye when he felt two more hands wrapping around his own.

“It's going to be alright,” he read on Bryony's silent lips.

In that perfect moment, he chose to believe it. Sycamore chuckled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long time no...see...right...(clears throat)  
> before anything else i'd like to thank everyone who left me comments/kudos/bookmarks/whatever on this story even though i hadn't updated it in Literally Years, i'm glad you like/d it, and i hope this new chapter isn't too disappointing--  
> i didn't want this note to get too long, so i wrote a [post on my dreamwidth](http://javert.dreamwidth.org/4425.html) that addresses stuff about this fic&other things. there's also sad fic related art at the end. cheers!  
> (ps: sorry if i messed something up with the formatting i haven't posted on here in so long)


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